I visited a London Chapel recently with a couple of Filipino Friends.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ihs77-1b1b185

It was a good day. The meeting was like stepping back into the noughties but more formalized into a sort of liturgy of recognisable movements. God spoke as we sat beside the river. By river I mean the place people meet. Here’s a clue as to where we were.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The message wasn’t in the medium which was very slick by the way. It was in the faithfulness of the listeners.

For myself, one thing was the realization that in these situations I feel watched and the need to perform. Too aware of my own presence, not sure that anything was actual worship on my part. Sitting quietly outside on the stone seats waiting, before the service, gave me pause and a great sense of peace as if I was in a holy place. A small mercy I could not achieve in the service, though I tried. The peace was lost as the service began.

Come on church, people-together what are we going to do? We need to work hard on this. Life teaches us that nothing comes easily. Out of hardship we grow or are destroyed. There’s no formula; our history, the way things have been, should not determine our future. We have to work. We can’t change what has gone, but we can secure ourselves in what we are. Deal with the past in a meaningful way and step forward.

Our pilgrimage will continue with the wounds and the marks of life. But only if we let them be healed into new life will they be glorified. And yes, visible in forms and buildings but not the main thing.

In Jesus, all is well and all will be made well as sister Julian says. Brother Augustine or was it Loyola or neither, says when before God He is all that matters but in our work it is we that matter. Sister Teresa tells us we are God’s hands and feet. Paul in his despair leans on an understanding in Philippians 2:12-13 that teaches us to work out our salvation with God in fear and trembling safe in the knowledge that it is God who works in us.

So, what we going to do? Gaze at our navels? Write books? Keep on keeping on?

Stepping out in twos and threes, maybe we could walk our neighbourhoods and listen to those who invite us to listen. Just listen; become active in works of charity; welcome others into our space and be open to them; build a practice together that holds stillness, praise, and prayer and meet around a shared table with bread and wine. Maybe investigate baptism and agree a rule together and live it. We could make sure the rule is open to all doctrines and that every sinner willing to be transformed is welcomed by it. Let us be chaste in our relationships, rich in generosity and obedient to the word within, acknowledging the person of Jesus, as he’s revealed to the ones we meet, to be the way, the truth, and the life not a book of standing orders.

Sometimes it feels hard to be authentic as the past clouds our minds, to walk and comfortably be in your own skin. Usually, it is because we’re not. I’m not comfortable as I am. I feel watched as I have said, and everything feels like a performance. I feel pretty lost to be honest.

Purpose is very vulnerable thing to have. I’m not sure purpose is a good thing. It takes you away from the here and now of being present to whatever is before you. It makes you make rules and lists as I just have done. A programme. I mean purpose in terms of having a cause, something external to yourself to strive towards. Of course, being present to the here and now is a purpose and carries you through the day, but I hope you know what I mean, let’s not lose the message in the means.

This morning I got up, wrote a letter, and posted it. Each evening, I’ve been asked, “What have you planned for tomorrow?” This is only a question because I’m on a break from school, and there are no calls on my time, no deadlines, no need to prepare, time to get on top of things. I’m being paid to rest. I earned to rest. That’s a good thing about teaching, you get a long break. But Soon I will not be working. In 5 years time my job will be done and presumably I will have earned enough to carry me through sickness and to death. Well, what then? I don’t play golf. I have no roses to tend. I still dream of finding community, a neighbourhood, a new start something like you read in the list above.

I realise I have used the technical word baptism as a way of belonging. It’s in my list! For me, the word carries the message of cleansing and flowing love. It carries a message of being buried and raised to new life; carries a story of the journey through to a new life. It’s a universal, available to all. And where there is water, there’s a promise of a newness; baptism embodies belonging to an ancient past and a new start. Am I to be baptized again? Is this the way the Spirit is blowing?

Well, here’s a poem and a picture to exercise your right brain after all that left brain.

Am I to be baptized again?
Have I journeyed this far to die?
A new life, or tired belonging.

 What am I called to?

I am encrusted.
Covered in life’s dust
Protecting me.

All hangs heavy, domed, enclosed with
No horizon. How can I look beyond if
There’s no rim of hope?

Oh, to be washed again, be
Authentic with a future,
To be me, where
Hope forms, moulds.

My eyes are open to see what the Lord would show to me.
I need a vision that will not fail,
A horizon to explore.

This is my prayer to be fulfilled in the daily
Today.

A picture I painted of Notley Road looking towards a local church in the centre of Braintree.